New: Foundation Inclusive Communication Toolkit – Enabling easier communication between people and services.

2. Developing accountability and transparency

Openness about actions and taking responsibility for results helps build trust and ensures equality and human rights work is effective and inclusive.

What this driver aims to achieve:

Accountability and transparency are critical for ensuring good governance and essential for building and maintaining public trust in Government and the wider public sector. Scrutiny is a key part of this.

Everyone in Scotland has the right to relevant information about policies that affect them in an easily accessible format and structure. Clear communication is key to accountability and transparency as well as being critical to wider mainstreaming.

This includes legislative process, policymaking, policy enforcement and performance, administrative budget, and public spending. Scottish Government, and the wider public sector, must be accountable to the public, as well as stakeholders, for how they carry out their work.

Accountability could typically include regular reporting allowing scrutiny of performance on realising and protecting equality and human rights.

Why this matters

Accountability includes proper scrutiny, compliance against agreed standards, and public bodies being held to account for their performance. Transparency is required to increase accountability through the free flow of information in accessible formats.

Core elements could include:

Scrutiny as an important part of accountability

  • Effective scrutiny aims to give diverse people and organisations power to raise issues and ask questions.
  • It pushes for transparency and leads to increased understanding of progress.
  • External accountability is achieved through key oversight groups and organisations who examine policy intentions.

Information must be accessible

  • Accountability processes refer to the ways public bodies demonstrate and report on their responsibilities such as publishing performance reports, sharing policy updates, or explaining how budgets are spent. These should be easy for everyone to understand without needing specialist knowledge.

Find more information and details under each action below.

Key actions could be to

Real examples and case studies

  • Skills Development Scotland (SDS): Transparent Diversity Monitoring

    Context: SDS needed to demonstrate accountability for workforce diversity while maintaining employee privacy and trust.

    Approach: Developed transparent systems that clearly communicated how diversity data would be used and protected.

  • Lothian Partnership Example: Collaborative Accountability

    Context: Edinburgh, West Lothian, and Midlothian councils with NHS Lothian recognised need for joint accountability across organisational boundaries.

    Approach: Developed shared consultation and reporting mechanisms for equality outcomes.

  • Edinburgh Council: Transparent Reporting of Consultation Feedback

    Context: As part of a regional partnership with West Lothian, East Lothian, Midlothian Councils and NHS Lothian developing shared equality outcomes, Edinburgh Council’s 2020 consultation revealed significant accessibility barriers in the city. A 2020 consultation on equality outcomes revealed significant accessibility barriers in Edinburgh.

    Approach: Edinburgh Council transparently documented and published consultation feedback about accessibility issues.

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